The average child experiences the following crucial pillars over the course of their development: cognitive, language, motor, and social skills. In many cases, an adolescent may understand the basic fundamentals of a specific set of skills, but lack the ability to apply it to their everyday life.
For example, a disabled child may be able to implement their cognitive and motor skills into their psychology, but only to a certain extent. Regardless of this fact, many of these skills come naturally to a child if they’re raised in a healthy environment—or, at the very least, have some prominent figure in their life. Essentially, this means that at some point during adolescence, they’re taught how to utilize their innate abilities once they’re considered old enough to be introduced to them.
Therefore, in a much different scenario, an adolescent may struggle to enforce certain skills because they just never reached that checkpoint. After cognitive development, the most inevitable stage for a child to experience would be their social skills. If an adolescent is privileged enough to be surrounded by a community or be enrolled in school, then naturally, they would encounter peers who’d befriend them. And while not all friendships last into adulthood, children will continue to meet other people along the way.
Friendship is typically defined as a strong bond between two or more people who interact almost daily, provide physical and emotional support for one another, and experience fun activities together. However, in a very rare, small percentage of cases does an adult never experience friendship throughout their entire adolescence. While this experience may not seem all that serious, the reality is that it’s extremely detrimental.
Most people know what it feels like to have a friend, and therefore are unable to grasp a life where friendship is basically like rocket science. Having a strong knowledge of what friendship is means nothing if a person has never felt it before, as understanding something is much different than experiencing it. The longer it takes for a person to make friends, the more resentful, depressed, and lonely they grow.
Why? Well, that’s because children simply want to be like everyone else. A lack of attention, in their mind, suggests that they’re not “cool.” Children are generally very sensitive, so it really would feel like it’s the end of the world for them, which is why they may make desperate attempts to change things about themselves in order to receive even the slightest bit of attention. If that doesn’t work, they’ll blame the world around them—that does not mean they stop feeling insecure.
The older a child gets and has yet to experience a genuine connection, the more isolated they become. Often, that isolation is established by their peers who have begun to recognize them as the “quiet kid.” Then, that isolation shifts to an accepted role by the lonely party who’s come to realize that they’re not wanted, so they might as well give up trying. At this severe level of loneliness, not even kind peers will be enough to stop a person from self-distancing, as the loneliness has already breached their psychology.
A lonely teenager who has matured may understand the gravity of their situation as they’ve realized that even the thought of making friends feels more like a chore rather than something that just happens. They’ve never had a chance to use what they already know about socializing, and to suddenly be thrown into a situation where they’ll have to is their idea of torture. Even if a lonely teenager craves friendship, if they’ve lived long enough without it, it’s naturally going to be difficult for them to put themselves out there.
Loneliness itself is a heavy weight, especially since it can lead to other detrimental issues. A lonely person often feels empty because they’re in their head longer than they are living. Empty suggests they lack something that most people don’t, and in this case, it’s friendship. It doesn’t matter if a lonely person has a good family or is surrounded by a lot of people, because in the end they’ll always feel alone. The world moves on around them, but they’re stuck in the past, wondering what they could’ve done differently to gain someone’s attention.
Perhaps the worst thing about being mature, but lonely, is the fact that such a person is likely to feel like a burden when forced into groups or when their problems are noticed by concerned individuals. They’re placed under a spotlight they’ve never experienced before, and it can be incredibly embarrassing. Additionally, detesting or being jealous of non-lonely people makes them feel bad because they know it’s not exactly anybody’s fault (but their own if they’re that pessimistic).
A good alternative that most lonely people seek out is online friendship. Online friendships can be just as impactful as those in real life since they provide the same benefits categorized under the definition of friendship. However, this doesn’t mean that a lonely individual will immediately forget that the moment they put their phone down, they’re still the same social reject from before. Physical friendships are still very important to have because they exist as actual shoulders to lean on.
According to an article, 100 people die every hour because of causes related to loneliness. With Mental Health Awareness Month coming close to an end, it’s become crucial to put a spotlight on those who are struggling with self-isolation before they get worse. While it may not seem like people with no friends are living dangerous lives, the point is that, yes, it is in fact that serious.
